“We’ll try to do at least one per scene because every one has a certain color palette and lighting style,” remarks Lasaine.
The film language itself is extremely specific from episode to episode and from story to story that’s what we’re trying to nail in the storyboard process.” Extensive color keys were created for each episode. Because like the rest of the MCU, we’re visiting a whole variety of genres, tones and styles of movies. “We try to be specific with the way the characters move, fight, act, and the filmmaking of it. “That happened to me several times!” laughs Franck. Sometimes nothing will be back there or just a line for the horizon or a square for a door.” The animatics were such that one could get engrossed in the story. “The environments are more simplified in the storyboards. “In typical animation there are so many boards going by that you’ll see mouths moving while live action will have one or two per camera setup,” observes Lasaine. Great attention went into storyboards mostly for the poses of characters. Those will get turned into line drawings which then go to the background painting department.” “Our characters are in 3D, so we will build these low- poly proxy sets for most things. “We were originally going to try to do the whole thing in 2D, but for a number reasons it did not work,” reveals Lasaine. The combination of these three things helped us to come up with a presentation that felt new and exciting on the outside just as much as the stories were in the inside.” What If…? combines 2D and 3D animation. Leyendecker who have an elegant and broad- shaped language. The third element is the classic American illustrator vibe of people like J.C. All of our stories are born in the MCU when it comes to revisiting certain moments where life turned out a bit differently for a character. The comics have a special kind of magic in terms of their power, energy and excitement there’s something mad and unique about them. “The ability to create collectively a unified performance is one of the defining traits of animation. Placed in charge of overseeing the animation provided by Blue Spirit, Squeeze, Flying Bark Productions and Stellar Creative Lab was Animation Supervisor Stephan Franck ( The Smurfs: The Legend of Smurfy Hollow). It’s a challenge and a fun little puzzle.” The background has to go slightly out of focus, otherwise we won’t be able to see the pod. How are we going to see all of those layers? We put a layer of atmosphere behind the pod to get the right silhouette. There’s the railing in the front, the pod, and the back wall with all of the computers. We’re going to break things into three layers. We needed to simplify things down because we wanted it to have an illustrative style that alone starts creating its own rules. The rebirth lab set in Captain America: The First Avenger was lit differently from how we did it in Episode 101. We’re always trying to push stuff to get it to look cooler or more dynamic. We’ll put atmosphere behind a character, make them darker and put a rim light on them. We’re constantly making sure that a character or object or environment is placed where you can see it. “What we are trying to do differently from the live action is to play up the concepts of silhouettes. “There is a responsibility to pay tribute to the movies, which is cool and hard,” states Lasaine. If she can stay out of their grasp, she could be the key to saving her friends, her family and the world she's grown to love.Collaborating on the world-building with Bradley and director Bryan Andrews was Production Designer Paul Lasaine ( The Boxtrolls). When deadly and corrupt forces come after Alita, she discovers a clue to her past - she has unique fighting abilities that those in power will stop at nothing to control. When Alita (Rosa Salazar) awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognise, she is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate doctor who realises that somewhere in this discarded cyborg shell is the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past.